Music is done, time to charge into painting. It normally takes me a day or two to change modes. I started today by updating Argus, as the logical thought of programming can help calm me before a change of direction. Annoyingly, Windows Defender flagged the Steam-wrapped exe as a virus, this is the first false-positive I've encountered on this PC. It meant submitting the file to Microsoft (in hope) and telling my computer at least to accept it.
After this, I decided to look at the frames I've got and those bought over the last year or two. It can be hard to find an incentive to create art without a deadline, competition or opportunity. This year, unlike any, I now have the support of a loving gallery with the Oil Art Advisory, with Zoe and Max, who despite their differing personalities I seem to feel an affinity with both. So, I have the opportunity to show my works - this is a massive, transformative help for my art. Still, I work best with ambitious goals and tight limits, so I've decided, this year, to aim to paint something for each of the new frames I have in stock. This amounts to 10 paintings from tiny to huge.
Today I spray painted several frames, and the results were brilliant, much better than I'd hoped. The all-gold or light frames look so much better darker. I think now, my most favourite frame stkle is black (or very dark brown, warm black) with an inner border, inner bevel, of gold.
The frame top left there was gaudy flat gold, but when the inner part was masked and the outer sprayed lightly, the result is amazing. The elaborate resin cast frame in the foreground was actually a sort of cream with brown highlights. Again, it looks fantastic in black/dark brown.
Other frames were worked on. The dusty 'velvet' frame had a flaky insert in faded gold. I've sprayed this with thin black to great effect. I'll add gold leaf at some point soon (as I will to that resin frame above).
I also attended to the oak Victorian frame. This had a gold leafed beading insert which was so loose that it had fallen apart. I've since glued it. I was in two minds about the frame, whether to leave it in its dusty and aged state, or try to make it look new again, and whether to make this central beading removable, or replace it, or refurbish it. In the end I re-stained the frame in dark brown, so the frame looks like new again, and I firmly glued in the insert without updating its gilding. It was, when I took it apart, held in place with some wooden wedges which were newer than the frame (and the watercolour in it was c. 1950s, so that shows the age of this). I thought of using Polymorph plastic to create firmer wedges, knowing that Polymorph is not adhesive, and is reversable, so I did this, but the results were messy, and still rickety due to that lack of adhesion. I decided, in the end, to use hot melt glue, to permanently fix the beading into the frame. This is better than epoxy clay (which I used for the Tiger Moving Nowhere frame), but it looks a little messy and sad compared to the majesty of the old wood. The frame is a little bent, the insert was very bent, so perhaps this extreme plastic work will, at least, add a lot of needed stability.
A glance at my ideas books has already liberated several ideas, plus those left in progress from last year. I have quickly assigned ideas to frames. One called 'All The Broken Hearted' for that elaborate frame. 'The Empty House' for a plan wood frame which will now be black and gold. I've assigned one called 'Don't Talk To Me About Love' to the Tudor-looking Spanish oak frame
Whether the frame is Tudor or Spanish is anyone's guess, but it looks that way to me (oak and old it certainly is). The idea, as you can see, is rather simple however. Again, there's a Catholic-ness in there.
